Second Fiddle by Siobhan Parkinson Page A

He’s a child-murderer. Eeek! All that tree-surgeon stuff, it’s just a front, just an excuse to carry chainsaws and hatchets around, but really .…”
    Just for a split second there, she got me. Something icy had raced up my spine before I realized she was joking. That was the moment that I thought maybe I might get to like her after all. Possibly we might even get to be friends.
    â€œShu-ut up,” I said with a grin. “You’re not really running away, are you?”
    â€œI was,” said Gillian. “I thought I was. Sort of.”
    â€œYou couldn’t go without your violin.”
    â€œOh, I wasn’t going for ever. Just to find my dad and then I’d go home and get the violin. I’d need it for the audition.”
    â€œIs there some connection between your father and the audition?”
    â€œMoney,” she said.
    â€œI see. Is he rich?”
    â€œI don’t know. I mean, it depends what you mean by rich, doesn’t it? Not really, I wouldn’t say so.”
    â€œOnly, that’s sort of vital information,” I pointed out sensibly. I am a sensible person, in case you hadn’t noticed. “There’s no point in going looking for him if he isn’t, is there? Since it’s money you need.”
    â€œHe doesn’t need to be rich,” Gillian said. “Just solvent.”
    â€œI thought that was something you sniffed,” I said.
    â€œIt’s another kind of solvent. It means not bankrupt.”
    Gillian was clearly pleased with herself. She’d got me back for the cul-de-sac episode. Of course, her vocabulary is not generally as extensive as mine. That was just a lucky break.
    â€œWhat about your mum? Has she not got any money?”
    â€œNo. She’s always moaning about it. But even if she had … well, you know what she’s like. ”
    â€œWell then,” I said. “Come back to my house,” I added on a sudden impulse.
    â€œWhy?” Gillian asked.
    â€œWe need a strategy,” I said. “And a table. You always need a table for strategic planning. To put our elbows on while we think, and to spread things out on.”
    â€œOK,” Gillian said. “Lead the way.”
    That sounds like she thought it was a good idea, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought, anyway. Seems a reasonable assumption to me. But then, I’m a reasonable sort of person.

Mags
    That’s quite enough from her for the moment. Of course she meant it to happen. She just got cold feet later and now she’s trying to justify it, that’s all. You don’t need to take any notice of her. I’m the one telling this story. Well then.
    It was interesting doing the strategic planning, what Gillian so snootily calls “playing detectives.” It was quite like being a detective, actually, only not a real one like on boring TV programs about the police where it’s all Identi-Kit pictures and forensic evidence, but the kind they have in books: amateurs with inventive ways of viewing the world.
    I got out the atlas and a lot of paper and pencils and a railway timetable and as many phone books as I could find and piled them all up professionally on the dining table.
    â€œThis’ll do for the moment,” I said. “Later, when we actually do the looking, we’ll need the other sort of stuff: string, you know, and matches.”
    â€œWill we?” Gillian asked.
    â€œOf course,” I said. Clearly, Gillian hadn’t read anything worth reading—always a bad sign. “Now, what’s his name?”
    â€œBrendan.”
    â€œI will need his surname, you eejit.”
    â€œRegan.”
    â€œOK, Brend an Reg an, ” I said, and wrote the name down neatly on the top line of one of the sheets of paper. “That’s funny, it sort of rhymes, doesn’t it?”
    â€œHow d’you mean?”
    â€œBrendan Regan. What’s he like? Is he tall and